Cowboy Fence Company

I forget how we found out about him, but once we got his sales person over to give us a fence quote we worked out a deal where I'd build his website and he built our fence. He finished the fence then the web work began.

(You can read about my other case against Cowboy Fence Company here.)

Cowboy Fence Company gives me the run around.
I spent the better part of 4-5 months going back and forth with him about what he wanted his site to look like. I drew him up a professional looking website which he promptly rejected. Why? Because he has a friend in the business who already has a site and he wanted me to copy his site. With each iteration, he'd tell me that I what I drew was good, then after building out the rest of the pages, he'd change is mind, and I'd have to start all over again. This happened 2-3 times. That's why it took so long. Finally I did exactly what he wanted, and that is why it looks the way it does.

Cowboy Fence Company never refuses to pay, just doesn't.
Once we finally got to a point where it could be made live, he insisted I make it live and just trust him to pay. He had a big door hanger project (he delivered 50,000 door hangers with his website address on it) going on and wanted his site live for that reason. Another reason was that the BBB needed to see it live so that they could approve it. That was months ago. After billing and rebilling him. Still nothing.

Cowboy Fence Company has used the site, advertising it on door hangers and his business cards and he has never paid for it.

I already have one civil court judgement against him about the quality of his fence work. I filed another small claims case against him on 3-1-07 and I'm waiting for a court date. He was served papers on 3-5-07. Links to the court case decision will be posted here for all to see.

My lawyer tells me that since he took a copy of the site with the promise of paying for it, he has property that does not belong to him. This is theft and comes with criminal consequences. I will file a criminal complaint against him in the coming weeks with his local police department when I fully understand it all.

Worse, since it's a stolen copy and he's making money off of it, it's a copyright violation and carries a penalty of $25,000, per violation. That's a civil suit of $25,000 per web page. He has about 5 webpages and at least one photo that I took myself. That's $150,000.

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